The Lost Update

Man, oh man.

Christmas, then New Year's. It's enough to make a guy go crazy.

Ever since school was let out for the holidays, I made the most of it. I lounged as much as I could, taking full advantage of the break that was given to me. I deserved it, thinking back on the fall and the hell my students put me through. It's being "on the other side" now ... but for some odd reason, I enjoy it.

To think back on my Christmas holiday, I am fulfilled. Things went rather smoothly, considering my wife and I running into a (literally) hundred people through the families. Driving all over the states of Minnesota and South Dakota wasn't really the highlight (although I got free gas at my folks), but other than that, it went well and I ATE TOO MUCH.

One of the main highlights was that I won the South Dakota ESPN.com Fantasy Football league championship, taking home $180. As of today, I still haven't seen the check, but that's not the point. The point is, I took a 7-6 regular season team and I toppled the league favorite in the championship game. Thank God for Larry Johnson.

For every good turn, there has to be a downfall. After hooking up with family members on both sides, I got my first cold since last February. I thought it would be worse, but it was your typical head-cold, just blowing a lot of snot all over the place. I developed a small cough, but it wasn't nothing major -- just a little NyQuil and that would knock me out. With New Years' approaching, I was beginning to worry. Mike and Lacey had invited us back to their place to do a little partying -- so I was praying that I would hopefully feel better. I started drinking lots of OJ and water, hoping that I would piss the sickness out. On the other hand, there was Katie, who usually gets sick right after I get over mine -- and it's 10 times worse.

Overall, it was a last minute decision, but we decided to make our appearance. But first, we had free concert tickets to a country musical group that had only 2 real good songs (that I at least recognized), so we went to that. My head was so plugged up that night that I could barely hear. But I was in good spirits, despite being sick and tired, and Katie and I made our appearance at Mike and Lacey's at around 10 p.m.

"Now, the party begins..." I said as I walked in through the door with a 12-pack of Coke and a liter of Captain Morgan.

Me being me, arriving late at a party and it being New Year's, I've gotta catch up. The rest of the group were playing a nice rousing game of Cranium, while I sat back and mixed stinky Morgans to my little heart's delight.

I really hadn't seen the whole group for a while, so I caught up with most of them -- there just was a couple of people there that I really didn't know -- but that wasn't going to stop me. Even though I was hampered by a cold, I continued on.

I think the first drink went down pretty quickly, as Shane pointed out to me, with support from Mike saying that I cannot slack off -- pour another. I asked Lacey how "early" Mike got going on his beer, she replied, "About 1 o' clock in the afternoon." Shit!


The crowd dissipated after a while from the game of Cranium and it moved into the living room, where Mike was playing DJ from his computer. I tell ya, he was playing some classic '80's shit -- the stuff that really takes you back to the days when we were back in high school and Mike had his Bronco II.

It was about this point that things started to get a little hazy for me. At first, I didn't know what it was -- was it the alcohol, or was it that I was in such a damn good mood to start with? I remember Katie advising me that I "should slow down a bit", but of course, you know how that goes.


We also decided to play a game of Scene It! movie trivia on the DVD player. I tell ya, this was right up my alley, as it's pretty famously known that I own nearly 400 DVD's and everybody jumped to my team. I remember whoopin' up, going to the bathroom, and finishing my Captain Morgan bottle -- but I cannot remember whether or not we finished the game or not.

I can also honestly say that I barely remember midnight. Somebody said that it was only a couple of minutes to go 'til the stroke of twelve, I glanced at my watch, then after that, my memory was quite spotty from that point forward. Did I bring in the New Year's with Katie? Who knows? Kind of like how I remember our own wedding dance. Whoofta.


The rest of the New Year's Story is slightly remembered by myself, the most of it comes from Katie's own account of what happened that night. Bless her heart, she didn't drink a thing that night, because she had a gut-instinct that she knew that she was going to be taking care of me later that night.

I do not know what time it was, but I remember having the feeling that I had to go to the bathroom. I set my drink down on Mike's computer desk and made my way towards the halfway-finished bathroom at their house (look at picture of me holding the drink -- bathroom right behind me). Lacey informed me that the bathroom was out-of-order, but luckily for me, there was another.

Now, all hell breaks loose.

I remember a little blip of memory -- I walking out of the bathroom, attempting to tie up my belt. Next thing I know, I'm face down in the toliet ... yep, puking my guts out.

It was God-awful. I never barfed like this before. It just kept coming and coming and coming. Apparently, I locked the door so nobody could see me in my hopeless state. Yet apparently again, I unlocked the door so Katie could come in and tend to me.

According to Katie, this continued for an hour and a half. I would pass out next to the toliet in a pool of sweat, as Katie would wrap my face in cool towels. She would advise me that we should leave but I would keep telling her "no, I've gotta puke some more..." and I would go about my business. Later on, the dry heaves had started. I was about at the end of my rope, wishing somebody could kill me. I don't really remember much of this, but Kate said that I was sweating profusely, heaving, and moaning -- all at the same time.

I don't know how I got out of the bathroom, I don't know how I got into the car, I don't know how I got my contacts out, I don't know how I got to bed. Katie said that I puked into a garbage bag in the car; Mike and Aaron helped me into the car; I took out my own contacts; I took off my own clothes and I just selected a random bed in the house and fell straight to sleep.

Ah, New Year's.

The next day -- yeah. S H I T T Y. I managed to eat a cracker at 4 o' clock that afternoon.

I promised myself that I would never drink again. Maybe a beer here and there, but never the hard stuff. Well, it's been about a week and I haven't touched a thing.

Then just last Tuesday, I had to switch gears and had to go back to teaching. I was sure getting used to sleeping in until 11 in the morning -- but man, this week has really turned me inside out. I'm still in the after-effects of my cold, but I'll get there. I'm back to normal in terms of my schedule, at least.

I do have some more pictures of the New Year's party, but I hesitating to put them on here. Some of the pictures I don't even remember -- Katie says that I took them all.

Eh...maybe later.